Budiey
Marcos: The Downfall Of A Dictator
Premieres Sunday 10pm, 23 January 2011
Synopsis:
Ferdinand Marcos captivated the attention and imagination of Filipinos at a very young age, becoming the Philippines’ original boy wonder. In 1939, while still a law student, he was charged and convicted for the murder of a politician who defeated his father in the congressional elections of 1935. Marcos was jailed while finishing his law studies, but still managed to graduate cum laude, and even topped the bar examinations that year. Acting as his own lawyer, without having had trial experience, he convinced the Supreme Court of his innocence and walked free.
Even at that time, Marcos grabbed national attention as a promising and brilliant lawyer, and an articulate and riveting orator, qualities which would come in handy when he chose to pursue a career in politics in 1949. Five years later, he married the beauty queen Imelda Marcos who would prove to be an asset.
Marcos, with his oratorical flair and beautiful wife, would mesmerize Filipinos who elected him president in 1965, and again four years later, making him the only Philippine president to have ever won re-election.
Unknown to most Filipinos, however, the Marcoses were secretly looting from the Philippine treasury even in his first term, and ended up spending government funds to get re-elected. In 1972, a year before his final year in office, he declared martial amid growing unrest over his administration.
This program is available in Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese subtitles.
